by Carr, Jack
It wasn’t that J. D. Hartley treated him poorly; in fact, it was just the opposite. Despite Hartley’s philandering, he was generally well-liked by everyone. Hartley was at a point in his life where his adultery was a part of his persona and even an element of his national identity. He had been elected to Congress from the great state of California despite being caught red-handed on multiple occasions in compromising situations, both financial and extramarital, but what was acceptable in California was not palatable to a national electorate. After a failed presidential election bid, he had let his wife take the spotlight as she worked her way through positions of power all the way up to secretary of defense. J.D. had occupied himself running his consulting company, lobbying and building his foundation with the mission of bringing computers and education to the third world. This allowed him to attend fundraisers where he was the toast of the evening, surrounded by adoring women who found his mischievous ways intensely alluring.
What offended Anthony wasn’t the lifestyle or elitism of his current employer. It was the fact that J. D. Hartley had assumed from day one that, because Anthony was black, he was by default a liberal Democrat and supportive of the Hartley’s political leanings. Anthony had seen liberal policies fail his community time and time again, promoting an entitlement culture that he believed was the cause of the problems, rather than the solution to them. In any event, Anthony was a man of God and a professional. He smiled and made small talk when necessary, always on time and always gassed up and ready to go.
Today his boss had made him wait longer than usual. Anthony had parked the Suburban right in front of the SoHo apartment where Hartley had spent the night with his latest mistress, a well-endowed real estate agent in her early thirties. He must have really been on a roll, as he’d spent the entire day with her in the apartment building, finally calling for Anthony in the late afternoon. The doorman allowed Anthony to park in the loading zone while he waited for the former congressman.
Anthony had the satellite radio set to a classical music station as he surveyed the Manhattan evening. He loved the hustle of New York and would never think of working elsewhere. The vitality of the people moving along the sidewalks, the constant stream of traffic, and the majesty of the buildings never got old for him. It was his city.
The melancholy of Richard Strauss’s “Im Abendrot” filled the Suburban. Anthony loved classical music almost as much as he loved New York. Pairing the two was majestic. Knowing that the piece was written with the calm acceptance of death as its inspiration seemed in sharp contrast with the life surrounding Anthony’s current piece of early evening New York energy.
A wave from the doorman signified that Congressman Hartley was headed down. Anthony exited his vehicle, pushing the heavy armored door open, and moved to the right rear passenger side to open the door as Hartley exited the building with a spring in his step.
“Good evening, Anthony,” Hartley said with a confident smile full of magnificent white teeth as he approached the car in an immaculate navy blue suit and bright yellow tie. “Sorry to keep you waiting, but duty called.”
“Good evening, Congressman,” Anthony replied as he opened the door for his employer, shutting it behind him and making his way around the front.
The black Sprinter van almost knocked him off his feet.
“Whoa!” Anthony stammered as he regained his balance. “Hey!” He yelled at the Sprinter driver.
The van had pulled in right next to the congressman’s Suburban, so close that it had knocked the left side-view mirror off the vehicle.
These young delivery guys are crazy, thought Anthony, bringing his arms up in an incredulous shrug as if to say, Well, now what?
As he moved back to the front of the Suburban, he got a good look at the driver of the van. With a full beard and unkempt hair, he looked more like a mountain man than a delivery driver. It was when he slid from the front seat and moved parallel and forward of the pinned vehicle that Anthony realized this was no delivery driver.
Time seemed to slow for Anthony as he looked through the front window to see Hartley in the backseat reading his paper, unmoved by the commotion caused by the Sprinter. Switching his attention back toward the van driver, he noticed something small and white in his left hand. He appeared to be looking not at Hartley and not at the Suburban but at the people on the sidewalk. It was only then that Anthony realized what was happening. He had to get Hartley out of the car. That was his last thought before a sound he had not heard since his basic demolition training in the Marine Corps thirty-five years earlier erupted from the Sprinter. Fire, deafening noise, and a shockwave unlike anything he had ever experienced reverberated through his body and sucked the air from his lungs. The congressman’s Suburban rocked onto its side against the curb while the front of the apartment building absorbed an impact that Anthony thought might take down the building. Wide-eyed, he stared at the formerly peaceful streets that had just been transformed into a war zone. When he turned back toward the bearded man, all he saw was traffic and chaos.
CHAPTER 69
REECE TURNED THE CORNER and ran east, blending in among the masses of humanity desperate to flee the site of the explosion. He couldn’t help but think of similar images from television sixteen years earlier, images that sent Reece and his brothers to far corners of the globe in search of those responsible. Improvise, Reece. He saw an opportunity and reacted instantly, grabbing a wide-brimmed black hat from the head of a Hassidic Jew jogging in front of him. The man turned instantly to his left to recover his sacred hat, but Reece brushed past the man on his right side and continued forward. The sheeplike crowd sensed the lack of danger and began to slow as human curiosity started to set in. Much to Reece’s shock, people began pulling out their phones to check news sites, take video, and even to post to social media accounts, lest anyone miss a single moment of their shared life experience.
Getting caught carrying a gun in New York City was an absolute no-go. As much as Reece loved his Glock 19 for its reliability and durability, it was a little big to conceal from a trained eye. Getting spotted by a sharp-eyed NYPD officer for carrying a concealed handgun would bring his mission to a screeching halt. He’d have a tough time talking his way out of the encounter, and shooting it out with the cops here was a really bad plan. He wasn’t about to go unarmed at this point, though, so he had compromised firepower for concealment. The Glock 43 was a compact, single-stack magazine version of the larger Austrian pistol that shared its 9mm chambering. Reece’s pistol had been extensively customized by Zev Technologies in Oxnard, California, and Reece could shoot it almost as well as he could its larger relative. With the slim but powerful handgun in an appendix holster, Reece could defend himself and potentially break contact if it were absolutely necessary. He desperately hoped that wouldn’t be the case.
Reece slowed his pace to a jog and eased to the edge of the crowd. Switching to a brisk walk, he turned north down an alley, placing the hat atop his head. Removing his backpack as he walked, he took out a black Arc’teryx fleece and pulled it on. The disguise wouldn’t bear close scrutiny but, along with his full beard, it would work at first glance.
The alley took Reece to another eastbound street, where he turned right and began looking for a cab. It had been years since he’d visited New York, and it took him a few tries before he decoded the meaning of the light bars on the taxi’s roofs. Finally spotting an empty car, Reece walked out in front of it to block its path. The driver stopped and he quickly climbed inside. “Brooklyn, Best Buy on Belt Parkway,” Reece said, in his best Eastern European accent, uncertain whether his mimicry even matched his preposterous disguise.
The ordinarily bad Manhattan traffic turned to near-instant gridlock as news of the explosion spread across the borough. The rumor mill came alive with speculation, half-truths, and blatant lies, panic spreading like a wildfire in a gale. What should have been a short drive turned into a painful crawl. The driver, who appeared to be from somewhere in central Africa, turned u
p the local news station to listen to the breaking story. Reece braced for a description of the bomber and lowered his head as if in prayer. It struck him that now wouldn’t be a terrible time to ask the man upstairs for help. Please, God, all I’ve ever asked of you was to watch over my family. Let me avenge their deaths.
Initial eyewitness accounts indicated the perpetrator was a male of Middle Eastern descent. The tall American of Scandinavian ancestry, dressed as a Jew from Eastern Europe, had to chuckle at the description. Maybe Hartley has a point about our xenophobia after all.
As they crossed into Brooklyn, Reece reached into the pocket of his jeans for the last of his throwaway cell phones. It was a flip phone, without the benefit of a full keyboard, so it took him longer than normal to type out the text message:
pick me up at mom’s in 30
Darkness came early this time of year and so by the time the taxi made its way into the shopping area near Coney Island, night had fallen. Reece paid the hefty cab fare in cash, leaving a 20 percent tip, enough not to be remembered as a guy who stiffed the driver, but not generous enough to stand out. It would probably be too late by the time anyone tracked down the driver, but there was no use taking unnecessary chances. The other side could always get lucky. He climbed out of the cab into the chilly night air; the temperature had dropped into the high forties and it was starting to rain. Perfect. Reece stood for a moment and pretended to use his cell phone as the cab sped away in search of his next fare.
Reece walked south, past a hotel, a wholesale club, and a Mercedes dealership. As he passed through a relatively dark area between the lights of two businesses, he took the ill-fitting hat from his head and flung it like a Frisbee off into the weeds. He retrieved a battered ball cap from one of his old platoons out of his pack and pulled it on low and tight. The insignia would be meaningless to all but a few people, most of whom were dead. See you soon, boys.
Reece turned right on Bay Forty-First Street and headed toward the water. Airports and train stations were full of cops, surveillance cameras, and sophisticated software to track the comings and goings of passengers. Marinas, however, were what Churchill would have called the “soft underbelly” of transit, with minimal if any security or surveillance. The Marine Basin Marina was scheduled to close at 5:00 p.m. and the employees were too engrossed in their closing rituals to notice a solitary figure walk through the gate in the rainy darkness. Reece could see the running lights of his exfil ride floating just off the end of the marina’s long pier. The boat, expertly driven, pulled close as he approached, the driver controlling the throttles to keep the vessel from smashing into the concrete pilings in the choppy waters. Reece walked off the end of the pier and landed on the deck with well-practiced grace. The driver seemed to take no notice as he accelerated the boat away from the shoreline.
“Thanks for the ride, Raife,” Reece said as he approached the driver at the helm.
“Don’t mention it, eh?” Raife Hastings replied without taking his eyes off the water. He spoke with a slight accent that most would assume to be South African. Reece knew better.
CHAPTER 70
Fishers Island, New York
THE 38-FOOT PROTECTOR TAURANGA bobbed in the dark waters of Fishers Island Sound, between Fishers Island, New York, and Ram Island, Connecticut. Located at the eastern tip of Long Island Sound, Fishers Island had long been associated with the military as a base for naval forces up to and through World War II. These days it was the lesser-known cousin to the Hamptons, though at only nine miles long and one mile wide, it was arguably more exclusive. Once a guardian to the waters of the northeastern United States, it was now an escape for the ultrarich, with two private clubs and one of the most sought after rounds of golf on earth. With less than 250 year-round residents, it was the perfect escape for the country’s most discerning families. In late October few lights burned in the homes spaced generously along the shoreline. Reece had his thermal imager focused on one in particular.
They had timed it for a slack tide, as currents were exceptionally strong here. There was very little maritime traffic tonight due to the wind and weather, which both continued to build, but the triple 350-horsepower outboard motors of the Protector had no trouble holding station in the rough seas. Originally built for the New Zealand Coast Guard, its ridged fiberglass hull and surrounding inflatable chambered Hypalon tubes made it strikingly similar to the RIBs that SEALs had used in maritime operations for most of Reece’s time in the Navy, though this one was built with luxury, not effectiveness in war, as its guiding design principle. Rain pelted down around them, but neither man seemed to care. Good operating weather.
Raife manned the helm. He had been quiet most of the trip. At two inches taller than Reece’s six feet but with shoulders to match, he looked like an MMA fighter trapped in a cowboy’s body who somehow found himself captaining a ship at sea. Wisps of dirty-blond hair snuck from beneath a black watch-cap-style beanie and betrayed the fact that this guy did not spend much time in a boardroom. The scar that ran from the corner of his left eye and ended just shy of his upper lip gave his rugged features a menacing look. Even though it was dark, his green eyes pierced the night like a nocturnal predator.
“Okay. I’ve seen what I needed to,” said Reece, lowering his thermal. “Take me around to windward. I don’t want to come right in on them. They probably expect that coming from a Frogman.”
Raife nodded but didn’t say a word. He pushed the throttle forward and the agile boat sprang to life, easily handling the choppy waves and turbulent weather for which it was engineered. Deftly piloting around the eastern tip of the island, he slowed his advance and maneuvered the Protector west. Anyone looking from shore would think he was just one more rich yachtsman who didn’t check the weather and had bitten off more than he could chew, now making his way back home to Long Island in his expensive toy, choosing to avoid the notoriously hard-to-navigate shallow rocks of the Sound, termed “the Clumps.”
“This is good,” Reece told his larger companion. “Just over a mile offshore.”
Katie had accessed her work database and spent hours sifting through public and private records of the Hartleys, attempting to piece together the SECDEF’s most probable location. There had to be a place off the books where she would hole up. Then Katie found it. Hidden deep within the convoluted financials of the Hartley Family Foundation was a write-off for a Foundation Planning Office. The address was a post office box in New York but a phone number listed on one of the mandatory 501(c)(3) forms had a Connecticut prefix. Katie narrowed her search to counties bordering Connecticut and cross-referenced those with geo-data location information embedded in the newer digital photos taken of the couple over the last three years. Matching that data, Katie found what she was looking for. She passed the information to Reece via Signal and wished him luck.
Tracking down Steve Horn had not proven to be the most difficult of tasks. What tipped the scales toward the nautical utopia of northern New York came from Liz, who had activated her contacts in the aviation community. A day after the mission to kill Reece in New Hampshire had ended in a dry hole, a Gulfstream IV owned by Capstone Capital landed at Francis S. Gabreski Airport in Westhampton Beach, New York, where it remained with its pilots on standby. Utilizing her knowledge and associates in the industry, Liz had discovered that Horn had chartered a Eurocopter AS350 helicopter to make the thirty-seven-nautical-mile flight from Westhampton to Fishers that same day, as the airfield on the island was not nearly long enough to accommodate something the size of a Gulfstream. All signs pointed to Fishers.
Raife watched his former Teammate adjust the last of his gear he had liberated from his cage back in Coronado. Reece was dressed in a black wetsuit. The areas of his face and neck not covered by his beard were painted a pattern of black and dark green, and a Draeger LAR V rebreather was strapped to the front of his chest. His M4 was secured inside a shoot-through waterproof bag to ensure that it would work when he got to shore. A waterproof backpack with
a valve for ballast held his web gear and other over-the-beach mission essentials. Attached to his weight belt was an “attack board.” This neutrally buoyant plastic rectangle about the size of a small laptop was built around the bubble of an exceptionally tough compass. It also held a G-Shock watch set to the stopwatch feature, along with a depth gauge, all illuminated by a tiny chemlite wrapped in black rigger’s tape so that only a sliver of light escaped. These tools would allow him to navigate to his target undetected.
His gear ready, Reece stood, faced his friend, and extended his hand. Raife paused but clasped it in a firm grip. “Thank you,” Reece said over the roar of the downpour, more sincerely than he’d ever said anything in his life.
“What you need has been put in place. It’s confirmed.”
“Thank you,” Reece said yet again.
“I owed you,” Raife said, clearly stressing the past tense of the word.
Reece managed a slight smile, then moved to the leeward edge of the Protector’s inflatable sponson, pulled his mask over his darkened face, inserted his mouthpiece, and initiated the prebreathing sequence to purge his body of carbon dioxide before beginning his insertion on the pure oxygen rebreathing system. After a few minutes of breathing through the system on the surface he was ready to go.
“Hey, Reece? This evens us up,” Raife said firmly.
